Booking Departments are Unwelcoming
by CampionSayn
Summary: There are roaches, ugly paint on everything and cops that don't give a damn about the truth. Gotham City is not a good place to get arrested. One-shot.


Title: Booking Departments Are Unwelcoming.  
>Summary: There are roaches, ugly paint on everything and cops that don't give a damn about the truth. Gotham City is not a good place to get arrested. One-shot.<br>Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, the series or any of the like. Don't sue.  
>Warnings: Blood, grit, and other such things that most will find a little distasteful.<br>Dedication: To **Rose Midnight Moonlight Black** whom asked me to push my limits in another direction than what I'm used to. It's not much, but it's as dark as I could make it; even if that's not much better than standing on a city street with just one street lamp on instead of the usual twenty per block. It's short, but I hope it worked out.

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><p><em>-:-<br>__"In youth we learn; in age we understand."  
>- Austrian novelist, Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach<em>

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><p>A roach the size of a monarch butterfly just skittered over his shoe and Terry in unsure whether or not crushing it would make him feel any better with the situation he has found himself in. Probably not; a raging headache from getting punched in the jaw and hit over the back of his spine by some drug dealing asshole that tried to run off with the teen's money before they both got arrested—Terry, under the charge of drug seeking, which was completely ridiculous, seeing as the dealer had stolen his wallet and the brunette had chased him into an alley—by a pair of rookie cops that were apparently idiots.<p>

No, he would let the roach live. It would hurt too much to move right now anyway. His headache came with the added bonus of nausea. Would it be embarrassing to vomit in the booking department…oh, yes. He had been seen here before. If the officer who picked him up for that vandalism charge came by and saw McGinnis chucking his lunch, Terry would never live it down.

So, instead, he settled for swishing his tongue along the lining of his lips, sucking the flesh inwards and then spitting out the blood, compliments of the split in his lip from the dealer that would need stitches.

"McGinnis, Terry."

Leaning up from his position of his back pressed against the one wall of his cell not confined in with tall bars of steel with white paint that looked like it had been applied years ago by a crew that really hadn't given a shit, Terry raised his arm in acknowledgment of the cop—the lady rookie that had picked him up, wonderful—who had called his name.

The badge attached to her breast where a pocket should have gone if she were a pencil pushing desk clerk, as it resided with all the other rookie cops so the elders could at least pretend to know their names, read Duquesne. She came over to his holding cell carrying a phone, two of her fingers pressed to the mouth piece.

"You father is on the line. We called him and he said he'd be down quickly, but he wants to speak with you first. Five minutes."

Of course, it would have to be Dad.

Terry took the phone through the bars of the cell, took a long and heavy breath (like the kind Big Time took when he smoked those awful cigarettes three in a row, in a sort of subconscious way similar to the dealers the older teen got in a lot of fights with) and put the phone to his ear. His voice came out less repentant than he had hoped it would. He ended up sounding bored and winced internally.

"Hi, Dad."

_"Terry, what is the meaning of this? The policeman that called me said that you were caught attempting to buy drugs!"_

"That—That is not true, Dad, I'm not that stupid!"

Not exactly the best way to say so. It gave the impression that he was either saying that he wasn't stupid enough to get caught, or he wasn't stupid enough to get into drugs. He shouldn't have put it in such ambiguous terms.

Though, really, after the last few months, everything that came out of his mouth made him sound like a prick. He wouldn't realize it at the time, though.

There was a sound of sort of scuffling and, out of nowhere, his mother was on the line and Terry could feel the knot that was steadily making his stomach its permanent residence fold over and tighten again. It the knot were a type of robe, he could imagine sharp threads furling outwards and rubbing against his organs in spite.

The cop who had handed him the phone appeared to hear his mother as well, and cringed with him. Pity, maybe, but he doubted it.

"_Terry if you're starting to take drugs, I swear that by heaven I will never forget this. Please don't break our hearts like this—don't ruin your life on something like that…"_

"Mom," he interrupted, voice no longer with a dismissive edge he had unknowingly built into it since his parents had gotten divorced so he could pretend he didn't care about what was happening, but serious and real and raw, but no tears; he would not cry in booking, "I swear, I wasn't buying drugs! I wasn't even with that dealer—the guy stole my wallet and I was just trying to get it back! I would never, ever take drugs, I promise."

And this interval in conversation the cop beyond his line of vision, behind Duquesne that had assisted in Terry's arrest seemed to perk a little at this. The ginger rookie paused in typing up his report and looked over at Terry. Duquesne did so as well, both a little interested in the conversation that would later be classified in the back of their heads as eavesdropping, but not for the time being.

"_What were you even doing in that area of town, anyway?"_Warren asked, apparently adding to the conversation by picking up and using other phone that was in Mary's house—and they were in Mary's house, apparently, as she resided closer to the station and Warren must have gone there when he got the call from the lady cop about Terry being arrested about, if Terry calculated correctly, three hours ago.

The brunette sighed and, realizing he probably couldn't get a worse headache, changed position and both of his feet hit the floor, one elbow holding up the phone to his ear braced on his knee that was still throbbing from being thrown into that trashcan by that dealer, the other arm resting on his less injured knee. This wasn't going to sound good in any way, so he might as well just say it.

"I…I was going to see Charlie, that's all."

Silence echoed along the line and Terry knew that it was not at all what they expected.

Warren sighed over the line and responded in a somber tone, "_We'll be there to pick you up soon. There will be a family talk and you can stay with your mother tonight."_

"Dad, I'm s—"

There was a click and the dial tone sounded off, leaving Terry's head throbbing worse than it was before with something akin to guilt and…something else.

The lady cop came back over towards him and, delicately, picked the phone out of the teen's hand as he took his other hand and rested his forehead in the palm of it. Some of the dirt from when the dealer—slimy bastard that was a foot taller than Terry and had the look of a bartender at one of the clubs Big Time and the gang hung out at, plus twitching, pasty skin and enough adrenaline in him to punch Terry hard enough to split his lip and careen his head onto the alley ground like a bowling ball—sent him down to the ground spilling from his hair and onto the less than pristine white and cement floor. The dirt dusted atop some crushed cigarettes.

This was not a good night, not at all.


End file.
